Presentation of Pedro Castro Henriques, CEO of Strongstep about the possibility of using both CMMI and Kanban. - Organization - Context - Critical success factors - Problems / Issues - Solutions (improvements made) - Lessons learned

2. CMMI and Kanban… is it possible?
Pedro Castro Henriques - CEO
Alexandrina Lemos - Senior Consultant

3. Agenda
• Organization
• Context
• Critical success factors
• Problems / Issues
• Solutions (improvements made)
• Conclusions / Lessons learned

4. About Pedro Castro Henriques
Strongstep | CEO and Co-Founder
Worked in 10 countries in Europe and Africa in process, tools and
organization improvement in software development & services.
More than 17 years of experience, including consulting in software
engineer; Telecom, health and education sector – Ericsson
Sweden, Aerospace France, Telecom Altran
Professor at the master in engineering, services and management
at Porto University.
Hobbies & Activities: travel, inline-skating, snowboarding, meeting new cultures & people,
loves new challenges!
Spoke at Tedxporto 2010 “Dreams – The innovators best friend”

5. About Alexandrina Lemos
Strongstep | Senior Consultant
Software Quality and Process Improvement experience in
international companies.
Experience in definition, management and maintenance of CMMI
projects (Development and Services) in international companies
Internal and external audits coordination and execution
Definition, maintenance, certification and renewal of Integrated
Management System of the company as Team Leader of Processes
team
Experience with agile projects
Hobbies & Activities: read, travel, play with my nephews, continuous learning

6. Strongstep | Statistics
• European Leading Company in Portuguese language
Sum of 80 Years experience in Process Improvement
10 employees
Number of customers: More than 40 active costumers
Geographical locations: Europe & Africa

7. Strongstep
We are a company specialized in software
engineering that contributes to the improvement
of software quality in Portugal and in the world
We want to induce a positive change in
organizations. This will represent a step with a
strong, sustainable and innovative way
- a STRONG STEP
Projects portfolio:
Process improvement with CMMI DEV ML2, L3,
L5, CMMI SRV, TSP/PSP, combining agile/CMMI,
Six Sigma, NP4457, Kanban, Scrum, ITIL, PMBOK,
ISTQB, RUP, ITMark

8. Some of Strongstep customers

9. Introduction

10. Introduction
?

11. Agile Past
Agile
XP
Scrum

12. Agile
XP
Agile Present
Agile UX
Dev-Ops
Product
Discovery
Lean
Lean
Startup
Kanban
Scrum
Agile
Ecosystem

13. SCRUM and KANBAN
applicability
Support
Kanban
(ex.Help - Desk)
Production Line
Kanban
(ex.Manufacturing)
Scope Focused
Exploratory
Innovation
(Generalist Swarming)
Interrupted & Divergent Needs
Repeatable
(Specialist)
IT Kanban
Dev + Maintenance +
Support
Scrum
Scrum
+
Kanban

14. CMMI

15. Kanban
Kanban
Japanese word which literally translates as ‘‘signboard’’ or
“billboard” and was forged in the Toyota’s manufacturing
control challenges during the 1950s
Kanban system
A number of kanban (or cards) equivalent to the
(agreed) capacity of a system are placed in circulation.
One card attaches to one piece of work. Each card acts
as a signaling mechanism

16. Kanban
• Visualize the workflow
 Split the work into pieces, write each item on a card and put on the wall
 Use named columns to illustrate where each item is in the workflow
• Limit Work In Progress (WIP) – assign explicit limits to how many
items may be in progress at each workflow state
• Measure the lead time – (average time to complete one item,
sometimes called “cycle time”), optimize the process to make lead time as small and
predictable as possible

17. Kanban
To Do
5
Dev
3
Test
2
Release
3
H
I
J
K
F
G
D
E
C
Done!
A
B
FLOW

18. At the beginning

19. Strategy
• Start with using CMMI as a model and then evolve the processes to increase
agility
•Or
• Could start with KANBAN and then refine and formalize the organization
processes

20. The Challenge
• Culture - The main challenge was to change the people mindset
• Need for CMMI, to get better organized and to grow in capacity and
maturity based on international best practices.
•
• The challenge was implementing Kanban and obtaining a light
implementation that maps with CMMI
• To combine a Timebox vs an Event Driven approach

21. The Challenge
To Do
5
Dev
3
Test
2
Release
3
H
I
J
K
F
G
D
E
C
Done!
A
B
Refinement
FLOW
Retrospective

22. The Challenge
PP PMC REQM MA CM PPQA
Estimates:
- Priorization
- Cycle Time & Lead Time
historic
- Whole project historic
Daily meetings
Item´s
decomposition/
split
Cycle Time Tools
Audits
(checklist)
Commitment plan
Refinement
meeting
Board
management
Lead time
Tracking
card
board
Retrospective
meeting
Content
prioritization
Work in progress
(WIP)

23. PP – Commitment Plan example
Team
<<Name of the team>>
Team Management
<<Manager Name>>
Organization of the work
<<Name>>
Stakeholders Name Name Name Name Name

24. MA - example
To Do
5
Dev
3
Test
2
Release
3
H
I
J
K
F
G
D
E
C
Done!
A
B
LEAD TIME
CYCLE TIME

25. PPQA – audit checklist example
Question Points Information
source
evaluation Non-
compliance
Is the kanban commitment plan done and stored correctly?
As the commitment plan been revised?
Are the “todo task” the ones with most priority?
Are risks been monitored?
..
Is the tool updated?
Is the effort for work unit been registered
Is the team and stakeholders involved in identifying risks?
…
Is the Board updated?
Are the information in the cars enough and according to the
template?

26. PPQA – checklist questions
example
• Artefact evaluated: Work Board
• Is the work board updated? Are the cards on correct states?
• Is the work board synchronized with Work Support Tool?
• Are the cards in good conditions?

27. Kanban
1.1 Do Backlog
control
1.2 Work Units
management
1.3 Fill Work Board
2.1 Pull Work Units
“In Development”
2.2 Pull to
“Transition”
2.5 Do Daily meeting
3.1 “SOS”/Urgent
management
3.2 Work Units
reprioritization
3.3 Weekly closure
3.4 Retrospective
meeting
2.4 Update Work
support tool
2.3 Pull to “Done!”
1. Preparation 2. Execution
3. Monitoring and
Control
Pre-Board On-Board While-Board

28. Board Example
To do In
execution
In
Transition
Done
Urgent Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

29. The goals
• Having processes that help our customers:
• to deliver with less errors
• Improve capacity planning and delivery time
• Improve communication between development and maintenance teams
• To do Continuous improvement!
Also:
• Getting a internationally recognized certification
• Implementing Kanban and obtaining a CMMI light implementation maping to
CMMI best pratices

30. The Results!
• Faster deliveries
• Higher team motivation and proactivity
• Bottlenecks become clearly visible in real-time – which
can enable proactive actions
• Optimized process adapted to this nature of work
• Better communication/transparency

31. Lessons Learned
• Two different approaches (CMMI Dev/Kanban) implemented at the same
time was a good idea:
• We implemented a complementary flexible solution for services small tasks
(Kanban) without loosing CMMI best practices already in place
• Involving the whole team was a critical success factor
• The same team can use a powerful combination of both approaches/best
practices

32. Lessons Learned
• No methodology is complete
• No tool is perfect
• There's no silver bullet
• Search, pilot and implement the best of several worlds:
– methodologies and tools
Our advice: try, try, try!

33. Conclusion
• As David J. Anderson said:
“Cultural change is perhaps the biggest benefit of kanban”

34. Conclusion